Sprightly Stepping into 2025: ‘Cos We’re “Born to be Alive”

How will you step into 2025?

A new year can sometimes seem negative: another year older, political, economic and climatic problems; however, it can be an opportunity that represents a liminal threshold to positive change. I don’t just mean those new year’s resolutions that last a few weeks until old habits kick in again, what I mean is real change, a wake up call to life because we are “Born to be Alive”, as the 1979 Patrick Fernandez song states. Have a listen 🎶 Let that tune stay in your head as you continue to read 😉

One of the Lambhay Hill limes waiting for spring to come into full bloom

Just like us humans, every wild life is born to be alive too and we need to respect and protect them. To be alive isn’t just existing; ‘to be’ is a verb, a doing word; to be alive suggests living with energy and enthusiasm: to be active!  So, what will your activ-ism be in 2025?

Lights are lovely but consumerism tends to focus on false materiality…
Our hand-made Christmas card design of a Taxus baccata, Yew tree, was created to illustrate the living beauty and life force of real trees.

So, thinking about life and being ALIVE we need to connect with reality, with nature, with being active.

On this vein of thought, a fly caught my eye. As I looked closer, the stunning iridescent colours captured my attention. Quite often, in our busy lives we don’t give enough time to look more carefully, or read more deeply: our senses are often overwhelmed and undervalued in this digitally fast-paced world.

The Common Green Bottle fly (Lucilia sericata)

Many of us will soon be returning to work, our festive holiday over, back to the grind, so to speak.  How will we find time to ‘be alive’ when we are back to meeting targets, documenting data in triplicate and meeting the demands of a capitalist system driven by profit over people…?

Charlie Chaplin’s, Modern Times, 1936 Despite being a comedy film, Chaplin clearly portrays the dehumanising exploitation of labour, as his character becomes part of the industrialisation that almost destroys him.

Well, we need to find the time to find ourselves, and do the things that will make us healthier and happier beings.  Easier said than done, you may say, but we just have to do that, otherwise we lose ourselves and the wonderful world around us.

As you know, Rebel Botanists are volunteers, we give freely of our time to educate, through our street art activities, to highlight wildlife in the urban environment. Check out some of our past work:

Chalking up the names of wild flowers along the streets, including the Latin/scientific name 🌼🌼🌼
Yah, a bit of tree hugging – feel the energy and raise awareness to passers-by of tree species and their importance.
Walking and researching the value of Temperate Rainforests
We gatecrashed Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival and met some lovely people and chalked their streets 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
We’ve been seed-bombing!
Planting wild plants and trees 🌳🌳🌳
Carried out educational activities at City College Plymouth and the University of Plymouth
Supported other community groups and organisations e.g. Melbourne Green
Some of our Rebels make great hand-made cookies too 😉
And, we keep coming back:
Walking on your street,  
To name the wildplants at your feet. 🌼🌸🌼🌻🏵️🥀🌼🌷🌳🌸🌼🍀🍃😊                     

So, what will we be doing in 2025?

Keep following us and you’ll find out. 🙂We have lots of plans, as well as chalking and identifying wild plants, we will definitely be embracing this year’s Rebel Botanists’ motto, “Born to be Alive” – for ourselves and for every wild plant out there, so why not join us?! 😉

So, put your best foot forward into 2025 😀

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